


Now I Know The Only Compass That I Need Is The One That Leads Back To You

by mesohorany



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: High Harry, M/M, Sexual Content, Sexytime, Substance Abuse, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 03:02:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mesohorany/pseuds/mesohorany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry gets himself lost while higher than a kite and the boys (plus Ed) go rampaging around town to find him. Calamity ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now I Know The Only Compass That I Need Is The One That Leads Back To You

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This really happened. I'm lying.
> 
> I probably should have broken this up into chapters, but meh.
> 
> I'm fairly new to this fandom; I would say it first caught my attention around November. When I started writing this, I had no idea where I was going with it. I'm about a hundred percent sure that they've been together since close to the beginning, but I chose to continue on with this idea because it would not get out of my head. The smidgen of Louis/Niall was a whim.
> 
> The only band I listened to while writing this is [Purity Ring](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddFLhQZ0t_4). This is the music that's playing in the club the boys are visiting in the beginning. The title is taken from Jamie Liddell's [Compass](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BZi3fIg50s).
> 
> Also, to my knowledge, Ed does not drive an 02 Honda. :)

It’s dark, so dark, enveloping like shadows at dusk and that’s the way Louis likes it. Outside this place there is paranoia and confusion and red red rage, lies woven like yarn, so many stories that he can no longer distinguish the genuine from the fraud. When he leaves it will be Eleanor calling him, baby where you been, you alright love, and Haz with a voicemail saying something like tell me we’re okay, I can’t stand it if we’re not, you know I don’t have a choice. Louis. Louis Louis Louis. His name off Harry’s tongue is drawling, deep, gorgeous. Haz says his name like no one else and it’s a black windpipe punch when he pleads like that.

Slanted up against the bar beside Louis Niall is watching, cerulean eyes all hunting and protective, and Louis looks at him because he knows Niall needs to see some shard of life in his face to be assured. The Irishman reads him, chewing his lower lip bloody, but his little pensive frown doesn’t abate. Louis blinks and attempts to relax his mouth.

“Jesus, Lou,” whispers Niall, scratched rough voice through a harsh exhale, all tension.

“I’m fine,” lies Louis stalwartly, reflexively, and it barely hurts to say so anymore. His words will always state that he’s all right, even when he’s borderline suicidal, because that’s what he’s trained himself to do. Be okay.

Niall’s eyes track the path of Louis’s hand to his glass, note the plain way his fingers shake when he raises it to his mouth. “Sure ya are.”

“Can we just,” says Louis, pausing to empty his drink, swift soothing burn of whiskey laminating his insides, “stay here forever?”

Niall gives a half-smirk, but the ruminative concern in his eyes doesn’t budge. It’s a good thing this much attention isn’t being forced on him, Louis thinks, because he’d crack in a day; he broadcasts his thoughts like a phrase on a t-shirt. Sort of like Harry. “You know I’ve got to get you out of here before the press finds out what we’re doing and starts speculating why you’re drinking yourself to death.”

“But that’s where they’ve got it wrong,” replies Louis evenly. “This shit is keeping me alive.”

A retort dances to Niall’s lips and he opens his mouth to cough it out but Liam dancing up behind him overrides his words. His face is astonishingly grim for all that misleading energy, concern whittling his mouth to a thin pulled-down blade. “You all right, Lou?” he asks, low.

“Peachy,” growls Louis testily. “What is this, an intervention?”

Unamused aquamarine eyes flicker on his own and as usual Louis finds himself cowed under Niall’s silent reprimand. “We’re worried about you, mate,” says Niall, and Louis flattens his mouth, drops his gaze.

“Listen, we’re your rescue squad,” says Liam gently. “We’re here to keep you from doing anything stupid. You have so many eyes on you right now, Lou.”

“No one’s here, though, right?” asks Louis, fleeting panic lancing through his bloodstream. Adrenaline and alcohol and he’s ready to sell his soul to have Harry next to him because it is in this state of detachment that their lines of decency become so blurry they wane near invisible.

Niall’s hand on his shoulder, warmth of his palm infused through cotton to skin. “Can’t say for sure,” he answers. “But we’re thinking no.”

Liam’s focus is halved between his phone and Louis’s face and he’s distracted, texting Zayn. “Louis, you need to dance. Just come on.”

Louis snickers a little, reaches for Niall’s drink so he can steal liquid sustenance. “I don’t think I’ll be too excellent at the moment.”

Niall grabs the glass away after allowing him one swallow, glares when he protests. “On the contrary, my little alkie,” he says fondly. “That’s why they call it liquid courage. Let’s go.”

Liam on the left, Niall on the right, and Louis has all but no choice to let them bump him out into the plague of bodies, collective entity writhing to some lovely mindless beat. Sweet-slinky echoing voice in his head, some lyrics he can’t understand, but the combination is toxic and Louis is poisoned. He closes his eyes and raises his hands above his head, lifts his face to the ceiling and sways. Yeah. He can lose himself in this, get twisted up in the music, maybe be so deeply enmeshed he can never be pulled back to reality.

*

Thirty minutes, an hour, two; cringing through more more more shots of vodka. Sweat in racetrack lines down his back, tamping down his hair, Niall’s hands loose and light on his body and Louis is gone. He doesn’t think when he’s on the dance floor and it’s the remedy he’s craved since Harry owned to it, the excruciating lie that is him and Taylor. Right now he could kiss Liam on the mouth, grind Niall’s hips down into the floor; he’s a thousand different kinds of D-O-N-E done. Just not Eleanor. He can’t deal with her today. What it is that he needs, she can’t give him.

Sometimes his mind registers that he’s tired, sometimes he ignores it; someone tries to push a joint into his hand and he goes for it gung-ho but Liam intercedes, blocks him off with that mother hen look in his dark eyes. Louis doesn’t care enough to be pissed. At one point Liam disappears and Niall invades him, getting closer than he should, but Louis draws vitriolic pleasure from the knowledge that Harry would be enraged.

“You need this, yeah,” sighs Niall, and it’s a full spectrum away from a question. His breath is the only air that Louis can inhale, faces pushed close, the smell of him all musk and sweat. They move well together, the product of months of practice.

“Yeah,” answers Louis, and then Niall is kissing him, shivery-hot like that flame path of alcohol licking through their veins. His mouth tastes like salt and tequila and Louis should be shocked but he’s not and since it’s confession night he’s dying for it, hands fisted in Niall’s thick blonde hair, Niall’s palms racing boldly up the back of Louis’s shirt before he pulls away.

“Niall,” manages Louis, somehow unable to get enough air. “You’re not gay.”

“Nope,” replies Niall cheerfully, “and neither are you.”

“Gayer than you,” laughs Louis, and god does it feel good to be happy about something for once in his fucking life. He’s got enough experience to know that it’s probably not going to last, and he’s just thinking that he’s going to enjoy it when that premonition comes to pass in the form of Liam, rushing up panicked behind them, trying so hard to mask it but failing.

“Niall,” he breathes, “I need to talk to you.”

Louis’s stomach plunges to the floor. Something is wrong. Something is wrong and Niall isn’t freaking out enough, he’s too calm for the amount of fear permeating Liam’s grave eyes, sable in the dim infrequent light, and suddenly nothing is okay.

“Liam,” strains Louis. “What.”

Liam looks at Niall, clearly in a horrible state of internal incongruity, but Niall recognizes that he has to confess to both of them now and he nods his tawny head.

“Ed’s lost Haz,” says Liam, in that gentle voice that is intended to placate but only serves to rile Louis more. “Hasn’t seen him in two hours.”

And just like that Louis can’t remember how to exist.

*

Harry has never been this high, or this isolated in a room packed with people.

He’s stupid, he knows he is, but he’s too upset to drink, knows himself well enough to admit that alcohol in this state of mind only equals an hour of messy pathetic sobbing into Ed’s hoodie and this is a dreamy alternate way out. The acid on his tongue is a sharp sour brand of bitter but it is his conclusion that it will be worth it.

It takes a quarter of an hour at best for him to realize that 

it 

is 

not.

He’s sweating, strung-out shaking, grounded with his hands clawed around the arm of the couch he’s balanced upon. The room is a kaleidoscope of vintage Nintendo colors, pixelated and harsh; every movement his eye catches is unnatural, jerky. Nothing looks familiar and there are spikes in his heartbeat that don’t belong. Ed is nowhere to be found, but Harry understands that this is his fault; he ran away so Ed wouldn’t know he was taking this - trip (ha ha, very punny). He would never have permitted it because he’s smart. Not like Harry.

He wants to bundle himself up in a corner and sob.

Instead he pushes himself off the couch, tries to keep his eyes on the floor, but it’s swimming under his feet and the color is burning his corneas. Maybe if he goes outside he’ll feel better, and then it’ll be quiet enough that he can call Louis. Except he can’t, because if he talks to him now, he’s going to confess every. single. thing (and they just can’t have that, now can they?) so he’ll call Niall, and Niall will save him, definitely.

He’s just approaching the door - he thinks it’s a door, it might be a wall instead, or just a weird purposeless rectangle built into the house, he doesn’t know - when someone latches on to his shoulder, and it’s Zayn but he looks funny and Harry suddenly doesn’t speak the same language that his bandmate does so he reads his lips. It shouldn’t make sense that this is the solution but it does and Harry feels a jolt of triumph for comprehension.

“Harry,” Zayn is shouting, “the fuck did you take? Harry? What’s wrong with you? Haz.”

It’s Louis’s favorite name for him and at this Harry gets a little of his brain back. He feels like a car being hotwired.

“Zayn,” he says, “you look like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

Zayn’s jaw slackens a bit and he looks like he could laugh but worry beats out humor and he grabs Harry’s shoulders, shakes his head, black hair left ungelled swooping over his forehead. “Jesus, Harry...”

“I know,” groans Harry, and here comes the misery again. “I fucked up.”

“It’s okay,” says Zayn soothingly, huge eyes scanning the crowd over Harry’s thin shoulder, maybe for Ed. “It’s okay, Haz, you just needed a break. I’m gonna get you out of here.”

“No,” says Harry. “No, no, no. You don’t have to leave the party because of me. I’ll just, you know...”

“Stop,” cuts Zayn, focus narrowed on him again. “It’s completely fine. You need to get home. Do you know where Ed is?”

“I ditched him,” announces Harry, thinking, the fuck is this, truth serum? “I ditched him because he wouldn’t have let me do it.”

“What did you do?” Zayn’s face is so earnest, so concerned, and Harry can’t lie to him.

“Acid,” he mumbles, and Zayn closes his eyes.

“Okay,” he says. “I’m gonna call Ed. Let’s go outside.”

Commandingly he leads Harry to the patio door (so it is a door, a-ha, thinks Harry disjointedly as he passes through it), and the pitch silence of the world outside twists over him like a tornado spiral of wind. He looks at the sky and all his mind will let him focus on is tracing Louis’s name through the stars. 

*

They’re rampaging through the oblivious rabble, a simultaneous frantic forward motion, and Louis is blind to everything but the exit sign. Niall’s hand is bracketed around the sleeve of his jacket but he can’t feel it, can’t breathe can’t think can’t remember any word of the English language except Harry Harry

Harry.

Liam has been on the phone jabbering to Ed since he got the text but he isn’t making any progress, keeps shaking his head and screwing up his eyes when Louis looks at him demanding solutions. He repeats everything of relevance but only Niall registers what he is saying, has to duplicate his words for Louis, who just stares with vacancy daubed all over his face. Finally, outside in the brutal chill night, Niall deals him a frustrated pinch on the wrist, cruel sharp pain on his skin causing him to swear out loud

fuck

and oh maybe he does have a larger vocabulary than Harry’s name. 

Sheepishly he says, “Thanks,” to Niall, who gives him a genuine crooked grin, encouraged by this signal of vitality.

“Anytime, darlin. So. The plan is?”

“The plan is we go to wherever Harry was last,” says Liam before Louis can open his mouth, and Louis is reminded of why Liam is sometimes the greatest person alive. He beams at him in agreement and Liam roughs his hair, sighing. “He’s gonna turn up, Lou, you know that, right?”

Louis can’t quite convince himself, too worked up and knocked askew by the alcohol still draining him dry, but he makes himself nod and the gratitude in his eyes when he looks at Liam is earnest. “Yeah. So where was he last?”

“Ed, I need an address,” says Liam, authoritative, and before Louis even realizes that Niall has called for a taxi they are squeezed warm into the backseat speeding across town.

*

Harry thinks he can drink the sky, reach up and scoop liquid indigo night into a cup, taste the magical shimmer of the stars. They are all lucid yellow-silver-gold blended together and probably they all have a different flavor and the constellation strings that spell out Louis’s name are definitely going to be the most delicious things that Harry has ever placed on his tongue. He considers phoning the CEO of Skittles and pitching him this idea for an advertisement because it’s sort of brilliant.

“Bloody hell,” says Zayn, and Harry’s attention is finally torn. 

“What?”

“Ed’s not answering.”

“Oh.” Harry no longer cares, he’s happy to surf the curling tendrils of his high to crashing point out here, where there is tranquility and endless sweet oxygen. He is finally calm and the last thing he wants to do is screw that up. “Zayn, I’m hungry.”

“I bet you are.” Zayn smiles. “You want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”

Harry laughs but the sound kinda freaks him out so he chokes it off before it hits a crescendo in his throat. “I don’t care. I want anything.”

“We can take care of that.” Zayn looks down at his phone and annoyance streaks across his face. “Dammit.”

“What?” sings Harry, trying to stop himself cracking up at the agitation in his bandmate’s eyes. Now everything is hilarious. Wonderful.

“Battery’s almost dead.”

“Oh. You can use my phone,” announces Harry, feeling all proud of himself for saving the day, what a genius. Until - 

\- he digs the device in question out of his pocket and is confronted with a locked screen, and fuck if the password hasn’t completely deserted his head.

Genius, uh huh.

“Zayn,” whispers Harry, “um.”

“You don’t know the password, do you,” drawls Zayn, smirking, and Harry glares at him.

“It’s not funny,” he says, overwrought, and then he thinks that surely this is how girls feel when they are PMS-ing. Up down psychotic scared uncontrollably amused pissed flying murderous happy horny: all in the span of about ten minutes. He thinks that this is impossible to deal with and that he’s never going to blame a female for being insane during PMS again, because this shit sucks. “Shouldn’t this be muscle memory or something? What am I going to do?”

“Hey,” says Zayn, hand on Harry’s head. “Shh, Haz. You’ll remember it when you come down. Promise. Stuff gets mixed up when you’re high.”

“Okay.” Harry is placated again, doesn’t question how Zayn knows this, wishes it was Louis’s hand knotted in his hair, and now he’s freezing. “Can we go home?”

“Of course.” Zayn glances at his phone again but the gesture is in vain because the battery is completely done for. “I’m gonna go inside and call a cab. Do you want to come with me?”

“No,” says Harry adamantly. “It looks like Pokemon in there.” 

Zayn gives him a strange look, chuckles. “I should be recording the shit you say right now.”

“Probably,” agrees Harry, amiable.

“Stay here, okay?” says Zayn. “I’ll be back in like two minutes.”

And Harry has every intention of obeying him. Until he gets distracted by the Christmas lights in the front yard. Helpless, unthinking, he goes to investigate them - so shiny-lovely and they writhe wriggle dance before his eyes - and then he spots the display in the yard across the street, which includes a fascinatingly detailed cutout of Santa Claus, and after that his attention is tugged by the light show down the road, and...

...before he knows it he is a thousand different kinds of lost.

*

“Hey,” says Niall, and with the sound of his sober voice Louis is detached from inner turmoil. Dull pain burns on his left thumbnail and he realizes he’s been wrecking it unconsciously, digging into paper skin by pure anxious habit.

“Yeah?”

“Have you tried, you know, texting Haz?”

Louis feels heat blossom briskly up his neck, scarlet-dye his skin. The truth is he hasn’t; earlier, he was furious, and after the news came that Harry was lost, he was too thrown, mentally skewed. Impulsively he checks his phone, heart tumbling down a stairwell; Zayn has called him, but that’s the only thing he’s missed. “I-”

“I have,” cuts Liam, the rescue squad as usual. “I texted him when Ed called me. He hasn’t answered.”

“Zayn,” says Louis suddenly, the name on his phone causing him to lightbulb. “Where is he? Wasn’t he with them at that party?”

“Bloody hell, he was,” says Niall. “Liam, you talked to him?”

“Calling him now,” answers Liam, phone pressed to his ear, but “fuck, he’s turned it off.”

“Battery’s probably dead,” decides Niall, and even in this state of discombobulation Louis has the presence of mind to find it amusing that the Irishman, always so wild and precipitate and careless, is the only one of them who has fully kept his head tonight.

“Are we close?” he asks tersely. Niall slides a tranquilizing hand through his thick hair, alert to the panic in his voice.

“Five minutes, maybe,” says Liam, glancing at him. “Breathe, Lou.”

“Maybe you should call him,” suggests Niall gently. He has always been keen to the fact that steady chipping repetition works wonders on obstinate Lou.

Louis fingers his phone, doubting himself; as much as he knows he should, he is experiencing a deficit of words, has not a clue what he would say if Harry’s voice erupted smooth in his ear. “I will if he isn’t here,” he says.

Ed is waiting for them on the front porch, orange hair tufting crazily about his head as always, eyes sniper-trained on Louis before they can even clamber out of the cab. The first thing he says is,

“This is my fault.”

“No, it’s not,” says Liam, dismissive. “You’re not his babysitter. Harry’s a big boy.”

“You’ve called him? Checked everywhere?” asks Niall.

“I’ve looked, and I have people looking as we speak,” answers Ed. “Seriously, I turned around for like thirty seconds and he was gone. Didn’t even feel him get off the couch.”

Louis realizes his jaw is jammed up from tension and forces himself to relax. “How long ago was this?” he asks.

“Almost three hours ago,” says Ed, apologies scribbled all throughout his expressive eyes. “Louis, mate. You should know...he was a mess all night.”

“Told you he would be,” mutters Niall, and Louis elbows him albeit feeling something akin to a bird unfurling its wings for flight inside his chest.

“He’s not the only one,” he admits soberly. “You seen Zayn?”

“Not for ages,” says Ed. “He texted me and called, but it went straight to voicemail when I called him back. His phone is dead.”

“We know,” answers Liam. “So let’s find him, and then we’ll figure out a plan of action, yeah?”

They turn around to go inside; Louis touches Ed’s arm and asks - kind of bashfully - “When you say he was a mess...”

Liam and Niall swap a wise, smirking glance; Ed glances at Niall with this kindly understanding in the turn-ups of his smile before he replies.

“Well,” he says, “he wouldn’t stop talking about you.”

And before Louis can grill him further, Zayn explodes from a door on their left and announces, “Harry’s gone.”

*

Harry is pretty sure his nose has relocated to a different area and agreed to let an icicle take its place.

He thinks this is totally unjust, because really, his nose should have consulted with him first before allowing a cone of frozen water to take up residence on his face. He’s the one that has to deal with it, after all. He supposes that he can give it a talking to later, however, because right now he has seriously got to find a way to either (A) civilization (B) a phone he can actually use (C) one of his bandmates/Ed or (D) Louis.

Three guesses which one he wants the most.

They’ve got to stop being ridiculous about this. Obviously Harry wants to jump Louis’s bones and if the intense voracious way the older boy looks at him is any sort of attestation then the feeling is wholly returned. Once, what feels like decades ago, they lost control and Harry knows it’s pathetic but he recalls every minuscule detail: June 13th, 2011, one thirty-two in the morning, everyone else in the vicinity tucked snugly into bed. That brief period of sweaty, clumsy, nervous fumbling (tongues everywhere in each other’s mouths as Louis wove clutching desperate fingers through Harry’s hair, Harry’s hands rucked up the back of Louis’s t-shirt so he could familiarize himself with the older boy’s silk marble skin), is probably the single greatest half hour of Harry’s life to date. But they are both clever boys and they understand what is at risk and for a complex variety of reasons it hasn’t happened again, though nothing between them has significantly changed.

The problem is, Harry wants Louis so much that it’s devouring him alive. He is achingly, sickeningly, past-the-point-of-no-return in love with him and some days he wants to touch the older boy so badly he thinks there is a heavy chance that he will go mad from the frustration. He is miles past done with Eleanor, exhausted of Taylor, and he’s only just had to announce that he’s dating the girl

not

so obviously the next few months of his life are going to be brilliant (how much is management paying her, anyway?). Hence, the need for hallucinatory drugs.

He reaches into his pocket for his phone, clicks it on, groans when he sees the bulk of notifications tumbled across the top of it. He has about six missed calls, a mass of texts, some voicemails. If he can catch someone calling him he thinks he is allowed to answer it but then again he is really, really high, like fingertips grazing heaven if he stretches up on his toes kind of high, and he might just be delusional. The acid keeps surging over him in rough undulating waves and his blood feels like it’s got shards of glass in it, carving his insides to ribbons. Harry shuts his eyes and prays to come down, prays that Louis or Niall or Ed or anyone is looking for him, baby Jesus amen. As an afterthought he asks humbly for his nose to please come to its senses and return to its rightful spot on his face.

In the sky, the reflected lights of the nearby town pulsate their strange ethereal extraterrestrial glow. Harry bites his lip against tears and just keeps moving before he focuses on it long enough to start hallucinating.

*

“You should have brought him with you,” accuses Louis, subdued panic thrumming in his voice. Liam seizes his arm in placation, warning, because Louis is an atomic bomb when he gets overly upset and if he detonates things can get very nasty.

“I know,” says Zayn, debased. “He didn’t want to go with me. He said - he said the house looked like Pokemon.” He screws up his mouth, eyebrows knitting together as he recalls the fervor of Harry’s statement.

“Pokemon?” parrots Niall, lifting his eyebrows. “Was he drunk or something?”

Zayn and Ed exchange a loaded glance and Louis is getting sick of having to drag his heart back up to his chest from where it repeatedly plunges to his stomach. Niall has wrapped a warm tranquilizing hand about his wrist and he grabs it with the fingers of his unoccupied hand.

“Not exactly,” says Ed slowly.

“Well, what, then?” demands Liam, patience dwindling.

“He was. Um. High,” mumbles Zayn, eyes flickering all over, anywhere but at them.

“High on what?” asks Louis, the kind of quiet that is positively treacherous.

“Acid,” says Ed bravely, and everyone freaks.

“Acid?!” explodes Liam, and now he is the bomb exploding, justified hypocrite in reaction to this sickening piece of information. “You let him take acid?”

“Jesus Mary and Joseph,” swears Niall, floored. “You guys. It’s Hazza. He goes crazy after a few drinks. This is so not cool.”

Ed and Zayn let their heads hang, properly contrite, and Liam permits them to soak in their shame for a moment before he says, “Where did he even get it? Who gave it to him?”

“I don’t know,” says Zayn. “Neither of us saw him for ages. I figured he was with Ed, and Ed figured he was with me, and we just sort of lost track of him.”

“I didn’t know this was going to be happening here, mate,” hurries Ed, generalizing. “Honestly. Not the kind of party I usually frequent, and I definitely wouldn’t have brought him if I’d had a clue.”

“We know,” says Liam, all grim straight mouth and clenched toes. “We know, Ed, it’s all right.”

Niall has Louis’s face framed between his hands, eyes blown and earnest as he tries to get the older boy to focus on him, but Louis is buried thousands of miles inside his own head. “Come on, Lou,” he says fiercely, panic triphammering in his heartbeat for the way Louis is trembling under his touch, the force of his personal earthquake practically vibrating the floorboards of the deck. “Keep it together, mate, come on, we need you sane. You know him best, you can get us to him, yeah?”

“Christ, Niall,” spits out Louis, teeth bared snarling, “he took acid.”

“Told you he was fucked up,” says Ed apologetically. “He said he didn’t want to cry tonight, and that’s all he does when he gets smashed these days. Keeps ruining my hoodies, he does.”

“What does he cry about?” asks Liam sharply.

“Liam,” warns Zayn.

“Think it’s quite obvious, really,” says Ed, cautious. “You lads have got to shake off Modest. They’re ruining him.”

“And me,” grinds Louis, angry agony breaking up the smoothness of his voice.

“Look, it’s definitely a problem, and we’re working on, but right now we have a bit of a more pressing issue,” says Liam assertively. “We’re finding him, right now. We’re splitting up and combing the house and if he isn’t here we’re gonna drive every street in England until we get that boy back. Let’s go.”

So they go.

*

Harry’s not really sure how he managed to stumble upon civilization, but he’ll take it.

One thing he can still see on his phone is the time (and the battery, borderline perilous at thirty-four percent); it’s one fifty-six in the morning. There’s a McDonald’s and a Starbucks across the road and a 24-hour pancake place right beside him; he assesses the popularity of each building, counting cars in the parking lot, and decides on the pancake house. It’s deserted. Even in this lunatic state of mind he gets that it’ll be very bad if he’s recognized right now.

He pulls his hood over his head and walks inside.

The hostess is a bored, portly woman in her early sixties who doesn’t look twice at him, just grabs a menu and leads him to a booth in the back corner. He slouches against the wall, kicks his legs up and rests his feet on the bench; he’s wearing Louis’s shoes and upon realizing this he almost starts to sob. The emotion pisses him off unendingly because he got fucking high to avoid crying. 

To stave off the onslaught he focuses his attention on inspecting the menu but the words are caterpillars arching across the page, always in motion, and it makes him queasy. The sudden paranoid terror that he will never come down shivers through him and he bites his thumb, cruel pressure of teeth a welcome reminder of reality; pain is proof that he is still human.

When the waitress comes he orders chocolate chip pancakes and a side of bacon extra crispy and when he gets his food he doesn’t neglect to send up a prayer of gratitude that nobody in this place has a damned clue who he is.

*

After two crime-scene-investigation worthy searches of the house with no unearthing of Harry, Louis plunks down in quashed anguish on the stairs and leans his dark head against the wall.

“Lou,” says Niall gently. “Call him.”

Louis hesitates, thumb swiping habitually over the screen of his phone as he chews on his lower lip. “I just-”

“Louis, for Christ’s sake,” exclaims Niall, and it’s to hell with his patience because Louis is utterly failing to assimilate the severity of the situation. “You’ve got all night to work out your issues, but you have to forget about them right now. Your best mate is lost and high on acid and you’re too afraid to speak to him. We need to find him before he gets himself in even more trouble than he’s already in, hear me? Fucking call him, or I will.”

So in chastised, guilty desperation Louis hits send and prays.

*

Harry is halfway through his second pancake when his phone starts singing, the most joyous sound that has ever touched his ears. He practically upends the table grabbing for it and the caller ID on the screen doesn’t even matter, he just knows it’s a step towards salvation. “Hello,” he yelps.

“Haz?”

It’s Louis, Harry would know his voice in deepest sleep, through the fog of the highest high. In the background someone else’s voice explodes and Harry thinks it’s Niall but all he cares about is “Lou.” His body is numb, strength drained wholly by relief.

“Harry, fuck,” gasps Louis, and Harry is positive he’s not hallucinating the identical surge of relief in the older boy’s voice. “If I’d known you could answer your phone I’d have called you ages ago. Zayn said you forgot your password.”

“I did,” answers Harry, giddy. “Lou, I’m crazy, mate, I’m through the roof right now.”

“I know, Haz, I know,” rushes Louis. “Listen, tell me where you are.” 

“I’m-” Harry looks around, unsure. “I’m at this breakfast place. I don’t think it’s far from the house. I don’t know, though. Louis, everyone looks like food and the menu is caterpillars and I can’t fucking think. I need you.”

Louis is shot through with brilliant honey warmth, feels an unmanageable grin swooping across his face, lightening his eyes. He tries to hide it from Niall but it’s a ridiculous fail and in answer to the insolent look on the Irishman’s face he knuckles him mercilessly in the ribs. “I’m coming right now,” he says, swift. “Listen, I need you to find out the address of this place, okay? Ask the hostess or something. She’ll know.”

“Right.” Harry calls the waitress over and questions her, repeats what she says back to Louis, who in turn echoes it to Niall. The Irishman pulls it up on his phone’s GPS and grins victoriously. 

“Bingo.”

“Harry,” says Louis, rushed through with relief and more relief, too much adrenaline. “We’re leaving right now. Don’t. Move. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Okay,” answers Harry cheerfully, and then his head is spinning without his permission and he has to push his face low into his free hand and close his eyes to run away. “Lou, don’t hang up. I can’t - everything is moving.”

“Okay, Haz, just breathe,” soothes Louis, so placid-strong for him, but the second he puts his hand over his phone to confer with Niall he’s a wreck. “Niall, we have to go,” he pleads, voice a fierce hiss as he rockets to his feet.

Harry hears his words like pressing a conch shell into his ear for an ocean imitation - lacking clarity, hollow. His eyes happen upon his plate and he spends a good thirty seconds freaking out over the fact that his pancakes have eyes before he realizes they’re just chocolate chips, strategically placed. “Louis, my pancakes are watching me,” he whispers, still somewhat unconvinced of the innocence of his food.

Louis laughs out loud, hysterical. “Better not let them hear who you’re talking to, they might tell on us,” he says. His words are dark but Harry knows him well enough to comprehend that they are in jest.

“I’m imagining management screeching up in creeper vans right now,” says Niall conversationally as they parade through the house, “flying out and physically restraining you to keep you from getting to him.”

In Louis’s ear Harry is chuckling.

“I’m guessing you heard that,” hazards Louis, unable to swallow the grin that cracks his mouth wide open.

“Yeah. Niall,” sighs Harry, smooshing a chocolate chip on his finger so he can lick it idly off (take that, now you can’t watch me). “Did he look after you tonight?”

Louis thinks of Niall’s big hands fisted languidly in his hair, their hips drawn flush, heady salt-tequila taste of the Irishman’s open mouth and the way they were both weak-woozy for it. The guilt that he feels is so strong it gives his heartbeat pause. “Look after me?” Braver than he will ever feel about this. “I don’t need looking after.”

“Shut up, you do,” overrides Harry, and Niall, hearing him, grins saucily.

“He was safe with me, mate,” he says into the phone, pressed sideways into Louis. “But I think it’s you we need to be worried about.”

“Yeah, but Niall,” continues Harry with insistence, evidently neglecting to remember that it is Louis he is actually on the phone with. “is he okay, I mean.”

Niall and Louis swap a glance and Niall sees the fragility in the older boy’s blown glassed-over eyes, so so broken. He takes the phone and lets Louis shake it out, absorb the tenderness in Harry’s words.

“He’s fine, Haz,” answers Niall, soft. “Just worried as fuck about you.”

“I’m okay,” clarifies Harry. “Just-” and here he laughs feral and crazy “-sooooo high. Probably never going to come down. Are you almost here?”

“Just looking for the lads and we’re there straightaway,” promises Niall. “Ah! And here’s Liam - does anyone know, did Ed bring his car?”

“Yes,” volunteers Harry helpfully. “We rode there in it.”

“Brilliant.” Niall grabs Louis’s arm, establishes plaintive eye contact with him. “Come back to us, Lou.”

“He’s here,” says Liam, coming up to form a little triangle with them, fingers gripping his shoulder. “That’s Hazza, on the phone?”

Louis nods, dazed, warring for focus. “Where are the other two?”

“Over there.” Liam gestures loosely behind his shoulder. Niall follows the movement, wolf-whistles - “OW,” gripes Harry - and Zayn and Ed come dashing over and they’re all together again, original formation, Team Rescue Haz.

“We’ve got him,” says Niall in triumph. “Ed, your car-”

“-is on the street. Let’s do this,” answers Ed, and he goes streaking off, carroty hair glowing in the mild moonlight. Louis is level with him and he has never run so fast in all his life.

They get to Ed’s car and Liam says, “Man, Ed. You have too much money to drive an oh-two Honda,” and Louis laughs but he doesn’t care, it’s the most gorgeous sight in the world because it’s got an engine and four wheels and it’s gonna take him to Harry...

...who is still on the phone to Niall, who is attempting to describe Louis’s elevated condition of not-okay-ness as colorfully as he can without actually alerting Louis’s attention to the fact that he’s being discussed. He’s toning it down so Harry doesn’t completely flip his shit and it’s a royally trying task but he’s Niall and he’s so up for it.

“So basically, the unhappiness level is rising and mutual and we all know, everybody does really, and you’ve got to do something about this, Haz,” he concludes under his breath, quaffing air as he ducks into the backseat between Louis and Zayn. “You know?”

Harry is quiet for a moment, blowing frothy pearl-glazed bubbles in his milk like he’s three. “I do,” he says, husky, lucid for the first time since Niall began speaking with him. “You next to him right now?”

“Brilliant, how’d you guess?” asks Niall, smiling. Beside him Louis is clamoring for his phone back, an insistent tug at his sleeve.

“Uh, cause you’re one third of the golden trio,” says Harry, so somber and decisive he makes himself laugh. “Wait, how am I talking to you? Isn’t this Lou’s phone?”

“Yeah, he had to go help corral the lads, so he gave you to me for a second,” clarifies Niall patiently. “Think he’s dying to speak to you, though, aren’t you, Lou.”

“Yes,” says Louis, almost whining. “Yes yes yes. Niall, come on.”

So Niall hands him the phone, fishes in his pocket for his own and rapidfire commands his GPS to lead them to the pancake house (after confirming with Louis, original source: Haz, though God knows how he remembered the street name in the condition he’s in). Ed has long ago resolved himself to the possibility of garnering a speeding ticket and drives at a preposterous speed. Having been Harry’s listening ear slash crying shoulder throughout countless numbers of drunken lamentations, he is quite clear on the desperation of the mission at hand. Tonight is the night everything changes.

“Six minutes, Haz, we’re coming,” promises Louis, and Ed cackles scornfully from the driver’s seat as he sails through a yellow light.

“My arse.”

“Well, Ed seems to think that’s hilarious, so perhaps sooner?” hazards Zayn, raising an eyebrow.

“Just put your seatbelts on,” commands Ed, and everyone falls over themselves obeying him.

Approximately three disregarded stop signs, one red light, and two and a half minutes later, Ed slams to a precarious halt in the parking lot of Chico’s Pancake Palace (“Chico’s?!” exclaims Liam. “The fuck kind of name is that for a knockoff IHOP?”). From one of the front windows a ragged curly head peeks up; Harry’s eyes tag their car and he is up and pelting for the door, money tossed on the table, wholly locked on his rescuers.

Louis has vacated the car before Niall even sees him go, door slammed so hard it rocks them all (I want you to rock me, the Irishman thinks distractedly as he steadies himself with a hand on the back of Zayn’s seat) and he’s haring across the pavement. Harry intercepts him halfway and they collide, intertwine, combine. Louis has one arm curled sailor’s-knot tight around Harry’s waist, free hand woven through the back of the younger boy’s unruly hair; Harry’s face is buried in Louis’s neck, lips hot against adrenaline-flushed skin as he clings to him and you couldn’t fit a sheet of paper between them.

“You fucking scared the fucking hell out of me,” mumbles Louis into Harry’s thin bone-ridged shoulder, but he pets his hair to blunt the harshness of his words. “Please. Never again, Haz.”

“I promise,” answers Harry, shaking. “Lou. You’re the only thing that makes sense. You’re like...the only thing I recognize.”

Louis thinks he is going to shatter, china-doll porcelain, but he tries to keep his energy level neutral. “Harry, Jesus,” he says, drawing back to trace a finger along the severe blade of Harry’s cheekbones. “That bad?”

“Bad,” says Harry. “but that’s not why I said it and you know it.”

In the car Niall is trying to divert Liam’s attention; he has that conflicted look on his face that means he’s about to interfere and no way in any sort of hell is Niall going to let that happen tonight. Liam has this way of destroying the most beautiful moments; he does it to save Harry and Louis backlash from management, but presently there’s no one around to shelter them from and really it’s just horribly inconvenient. 

“I should say something,” he worries, and Niall facepalms, exasperated.

“Oh my God, Liam, we went to all this trouble for them to kiss and make up, you’re not saying a word,” says Zayn emphatically, and Liam cans it. Zayn and Niall trade a look in the rearview mirror and grin inconspicuously into their hands.

Outside Louis is ready to call his life thusfar quits, grab Harry, and flee, somewhere miles outside the bitter dictatorship of management, some private island in the sun. He thinks he could still be a bit drunk because he is severely overdramatic when intoxicated but it sounds like a magnificent existence. He almost suggests it but what comes out of his mouth instead is

“You don’t understand how much the only thing that matters is you,”

and then he’s leading a radiant-giddy Haz back to Ed’s car before anything else can happen in full view of all their mates, wondering how he let that thorough honesty slip out of his mouth. Harry falls in beside Niall and smacks his thighs and Louis climbs obediently on top of him, nestling back into the teenager’s lap. Within the slot of a single heartbeat Harry’s arms are encompassing his hips, chin balanced snugly on Louis’s shoulder.

In the front Ed and Zayn are harmonizing flawlessly, “all I want is the taste that your lips allow...” and the fact that they complete the line with much vocal embellishment before turning around to welcome Harry into the car makes Louis immediately suspicious that they are trying to hammer their point home. The demon glitter in Niall’s aquamarine eyes does nothing to abate his wariness.

“Haz, you’re going to give us all heart palpitations,” says Ed, swiveling round to rough him up a bit. “You coming down at all?”

“Nope,” says Harry brightly, and adds as though describing what he had for lunch, “did you know, Ed, you look quite like a sweet potato.”

The whole car bellows with laughter, the loudest of all being Ed. Zayn says cheerily, “Chin up, mate, he told me I look like a PB&J.”

“Not horrible things to resemble, really, they’re both quite delicious,” says Liam, grinning. “What about me, Harry, what do I look like?”

Silence; Louis turns his head to study Harry’s face and instantly knows that Liam will not be a fan of the answer. Sure enough,

“Don’t hate me,” warns Harry. “but erm...a cucumber. Because you’ve got no hair, and, you know, you’re wearing...green?”

Zayn catches Louis’s eye and they both choke on their mirth; Louis is smiling so hard he feels like his jaw is going to rip apart. Liam is not amused.

“I mean, I’m sure I look like a turnip or something,” says Niall tactfully, examining himself in the car window. “That’s worse than a cucumber, innit?”

“Nah,” says Harry. “A sunflower. So much yellow. And your hair is petals swaying in the breeze, like this...” he raises his arms and waves them to and fro over his head; out of pure reflex Louis whines for the loss of contact and Harry snuggles back into him immediately.

“Really, though,” says Zayn, gaping. “Someone is writing this stuff down, right? Future blackmail.”

“Someone please,” begs Ed. “He isn’t gonna remember shit of this in the morning and we have to tell him how crazy he is when he’s high, because this is never going to happen again, right, Hazza?”

“Right,” says Harry gravely, dead round eyes all solemn and damp and Louis is languishing in them, losing his bearings, screwed. “But I’m not gonna forget it all. I can’t. I know what I’m doing.”

Niall flicks Harry’s fringe out of his face; Louis monitors the contact automatically, watchful, territorial without having any claim, any right. “I think you’ll remember the important stuff,” the Irishman says, and his words are laden with signification that everyone in the car understands.

Silence for several pulses. Harry lifts his eyes and his gaze crosses paths with Louis’s and all they can do is stare, soft tender clear emotion fizzling like a fuse aflame between them. Louis thinks, I’m too sober for this, thinks, his mouth his mouth oh bleeding Christ his mouth, thinks, sod it.

“Ed,” he says, and his voice is raspy, obvious what’s rolling around inside his mind. His gaze doesn’t move except to relocate to different areas on Harry’s face, first on his endless eyes, then those fucking strawberry lips. “You taxi tonight?”

“Where are we going, Lou?” asks Ed easily.

“My flat,” says Niall at once. “You two, Haz and Lou. You’re coming with me. Liam, Zayn, you as well?”

“I think I’ll go to Ed’s,” says Zayn. “My car is there. If that’s all right, mate?”

“Yeah, of course,” answers Ed. “Liam?”

“Me too,” answers Liam slowly. “Niall...”

“Yeeeeees?” asks Niall, and his voice is simultaneously syrup-saccharine and machete-sharp, warning. He knows precisely what is clinging to the edge of Liam’s tongue and prays with every whit of his strength for the other boy to have the sense to quash it. For once in your life, please Liam please.

Liam looks past Niall into Louis’s eyes, reads the obstinate purpose residing there like a dare, and shakes his head.

“Make sure Haz is okay tomorrow, will you?”

And Niall beams with pride and pats Liam on the head and swears that Harry will be in immaculate condition by tomorrow evening at the very latest.

* 

It’s a strategic perfect thing that they’re dispersing in the order that they are, the golden trio getting dropped off first, because Harry doesn’t want Louis to budge from where he’s crammed back between his thighs. It’s like cuddling and it’s been proper ages since they’ve cuddled and Harry is basking, inhaling Louis’s scent and reacquainting himself with how faultlessly they fit, how Louis is the ideal size for Harry to curl up around him. Harry can’t keep his hands from wandering and he can feel the way Louis purrs for his touch, the fervid rush of his bloodstream a slow-hot thrum under his skin. The older boy is squirming everywhere in discomfiture and Harry recognizes the reaction as Louis getting turned on. Harry’s smile is pure devil as he hides his face in Louis’s shoulder, moves his mouth up to ghost over the base of his neck, his throat, his earlobe.

“You know,” he whispers, “it’s sort of weird. You don’t look like food. You look like Louis.”

Louis gives a skittering laugh, strung-up, caged. “I’m glad to hear that, love.”

“Lou, this is a big deal,” says Harry with urgency. “You’re the only one.”

Louis smiles, the heel of his palm grinding down on his upper thigh, dangerously close and Harry’s eyes are pasted there, fascinated. “So guess I’m special, yeah?”

“Yeah, you are,” confirms Harry, as genuine as he’s ever been. “You’re always special.” And Louis’s grin turns into an absolute beam as he ducks his head in pleased bashfulness, fingers wound together in an anxious hasty loop on his lap.

Beside them Niall is trying not to watch, taking huge bites of his fingernails in an endeavor to distract himself, but he’s practically bouncing up and down in his seat and he keeps thieving glances. Liam is observing his horribly hidden insanity with a wise smile.

“So you actually going to be able to leave them alone tonight, then?” he inquires angelically, and Niall, Harry, and Louis all look round in surprise before they burst out laughing. 

“Liam, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” lies Niall staunchly, betrayed by the infectious cheer of his expression. 

“I do,” mumbles Zayn under his breath, and Louis smacks him flippantly upside the head. He just can’t even act like he’s ruffled about anything right now because surely this euphoria is going to carry over for the next decade. He lets Harry murmur things in his ear, pretty and gentle and nonsensical in chorus, his voice so raspy and deep it pries at Louis’s nerve endings. When Harry’s fingers hop boldly under Louis’s waistband to untuck his shirt and slip between cloth and skin Louis drops his head back onto Harry’s shoulder, bites his lower lip against a groan. It’s been so, so long since something this simple has affected him so potently and the tension arcing through the air between them is less than tolerable. He shuts his eyes, exhales until his heart has ceased to fling itself against the unyielding jail of his ribcage, fumbles for Harry’s free hand. As effortlessly as a blink their fingers come tangled together, Louis’s thumb trailing gently along Harry’s wrist as Harry impresses his face into Louis’s neck and smiles with a joy so profound the older boy feels it as a boundless song in his blood, his chest. 

By the time they reach Niall’s flat it is two thirty-six in the morning and Harry knows the strip of skin between Louis’s right hipbone and his navel so well he could write a novel about it. Louis is agitated about standing up because it’s not like the thin material of his pants does anything at all to veil how turned on he is, but he just jams a fist into his pocket and hopes for the best as he tries to sneak the edge of his shirt back into his waistband without enticing Niall’s attention. On multiple occasions it’s been proven that the Irishman has a radar for everything questionable that transpires between him and Harry and Louis can’t deal with being called out right now. He’s only just able to cope with the knowledge of what’s probably about to happen. What he knows needs to happen, before he and Harry both go stark mad.

Ed, Zayn, and Liam all bid them jolly adieu; Liam’s eyes when they find Louis’s through the window are overtaken with that watchful, haunted look, the awareness that management forced into his brain when they announced that Harry and Louis simply could not be allowed to continue in this vein. The difference tonight? Liam lets it go, crescent half-smile gracing his lips, and Louis catches him wink before Ed coasts off into the darkness. It feels like permission and Louis loathes that his life is now so controlled that he must look to the hand that feeds to obtain the go-ahead to do anything.

It spurs him on.

“You back to earth, yet, Curly?” he queries playfully, as they walk up the pathway to the front door. 

Harry watches Niall floundering with his keys, platinum glint almost blinding when it mirrors the streetlight. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know how much I took. I feel pretty good, though.”

“Yeah?” asks Niall, shoving the door wide, and there is so much wickedness in his voice that it makes Louis anxious. “Good how? Like, in control of yourself enough to know what you’re doing?”

“Yes,” answers Harry sans hesitance. “I’ve mostly known what I’m doing this whole time. Everything is just really - odd. Like a different reality, or something.”

“Good, good,” says Niall jocundly. “So you wouldn’t say being high will affect any of the decisions you make tonight, then? Like, if you decided to, say, shag Louis, that would be totally you and not the acid acting?”

“Jesus Christ, Niall,” hisses Louis, but Harry is laughing, laughing so hard he has to fold himself over at the waist with his hands bunched around his knees to ride out the shocked hysteria.

“What?” exclaims Niall, grinning, all virtuousity. The kid is nothing if unapologetic. “Just an example. Really, it’s important that we know so we can figure out how to proceed from here, yeah? Haz?”

“Yes, Niall,” answers Harry as he gains control of his breath once again. His teeth are sunken into his lower lip and his eyes are trained on Louis’s own and just like that Louis is iron-hard for him again. “It would be totally me and not the acid.”

“Right, well that’s marvelous, then.” Niall can’t rid himself of the smile on his face and as much as Louis despises it his joy is contagious. “Who’s hungry?”

“I am,” says Louis instantly, because his face is too red and he’s so turned on and he’s got to be rational when this happens; his stomach has also been making noises like a very ill cow for the past hour and a half but he’s been ignoring them in favor of more critical matters. “What’ve you got?”

“Pizza,” replies Niall, and they all take off into the kitchen in search of food. As Louis passes Harry he trails a light possessive hand down his spine, across the curve of his ass, over one evident hipbone, and the fire in the look they exchange is enough to set the room aflame.

*

Louis and Niall vacuum pizza and root beer while Harry paints vivid terrifying word-pictures of what it’s like to, crudely, trip balls. He’s still soaring, but he’s leveled off a bit, and Louis keeps praying for his sobriety because anything that happens between them now will feel like taking unfair advantage. Haz can say he knows what he’s doing all he wants; Louis can’t justify it. He tries to back off on his pizza to squander time, taste every iota of every bite, keep Harry talking. Niall is wise to and partisan of his plan and asks questions that beg protracted answers. It’s really kind of cruel to be manufacturing this complex inquisition while Harry is not quite in his correct state of mind but Niall figures what the hell, it’s for a good cause. A nanosecond glance to Louis’s eyes, poorly masking delight and conspiracy, and the Irishman understands that they’re driving toward the same objective: sober Haz.

“...but,” says Harry ten minutes later, concluding one of his verbosely amusing stories, “I have to say I much prefer alcohol, even if it does turn me into a blubbering trainwreck. Are you guys done yet?”

Niall risks a cagey peek in Louis’s direction; the older boy gives the most minuscule of nods and Niall takes a last drink of his IBC, wipes his mouth with what’s left of his oily, rip-ragged napkin.

“I am,” he says, with a consummately convincing yawn. “And I’m knackered. I’ll see you in the morning, boys, behave, would you?”

“Can’t promise anything,” says Harry, cheeky and cheerful, and Louis closes his mouth with a staccato clap. He reckons that’s quite enough said on that subject.

“Fine, but no more drugs,” amends Niall as he gets to his feet. Harry watches him with this crescendo of anticipation swarming his chest; he and Louis are going to be alone, completely alone, and maybe (please please please) they can somehow find a method to overcome the destruction surrounding them. 

“Scout’s honor.”

“Yeah, I’ll hold you to that,” says Niall, stern.

“Me as well,” adds Louis, riffling an unsteady hand through his hair. “Night, Niall.”

“Sweet dreams,” answers the Irishman, saccharine, and as he walks away Louis swears he utters under his breath, “if you ever get to sleep.”

Louis wouldn’t put it past him.

He makes a massive deal over cleaning up his leftovers, strategically dodging Harry’s gaze because he’s a mess, because he doesn’t know how to put into plain English every passionate thought that’s stamped in his heart. He carries the trash to the kitchen and dumps what he can in the bin, the rest in the sink, and when he turns around Harry is standing next to him. Those sharp cucumber-colored eyes are begging, so melancholy. All it takes is for him to whisper Louis’s name one time and the older boy is broken to shards.

“Well,” he murmurs quietly, because is there anything else to say?

“Lou,” says Harry again, slow. “D’you remember...that night in summer last year?”

Louis knows exactly what he’s going to say, exactly what he’s talking about before he even finishes speaking. “If by ‘do you remember’ you mean, ‘do you think about it every fucking day’ then the answer is yeah, I do,” he answers audaciously, shy apologetic smile racing across his mouth. 

Harry’s face explodes into an untamable grin; he ducks his head, messes his hair over to the side. “And it’s the same for me,” he says softly. “Lou, you know I’m not really with her.”

Louis is in love with the fact that he won’t say Taylor’s name, lives for the ferocity of his statement. “Yeah, I know,” he says gently.

“I think I should also maybe tell you,” continues Harry, resolute. Tonight he’s not afraid and he’s seriously overdue to speak his mind so he understands that now is the time to undress his heart till it’s bare, unfurl it like a banner for Louis to read. “When management talked to me about pretending to get with her...the reason they gave me. It was, um. You and me. Like, the way I look at you, and how you touch me all the time, and how so many people think we’re, you know, together. They wanted to shut people up about that by putting me with someone really high-profile.”

He’s adorably reticent and Louis has never been more in love with someone in his entire life. He takes a step forward, hands tingling for how badly he wants to put his hands on Harry, anywhere, it doesn’t matter. “Harry, I don’t have anything with Eleanor,” he says in a hasty earnest stream. “I’m with her because I have to be. They forced her on me like they forced Taylor on you.”

Harry nods. “I think I kind of knew that,” he answers quietly.

“Well, now you’ve got it straight from the source,” says Louis with that little automatic half-smile again, trying to rescue the mood, keep it mild and lighthearted. He gives Harry a fond chuck under the chin and the younger boy catches his fingers and cradles them in both of his hands.

“I can’t - I can’t do this anymore,” says Harry, locking his eyes on Louis’s own. His face is so grave it makes Louis’s heart stop. “I’m going crazy. The reason I took the drugs was because everything was so fucked up and it all came together in one day and I just couldn’t deal with it. I’m sick of acting like I’m with some girl I can’t stand and I’m sick of having to watch you with Eleanor. I don’t think I’ve thought of anyone else since I met you, and I don’t know what to do because I’m not allowed to have you.” He’s so riled and it feels like pounds of stress have melted from his shoulders just from that singular confession: it’s in the air between them now and Louis knows and there’s nothing else for it. 

“Yes you are,” says Louis fervidly, and kisses him on the mouth. 

Harry goes statue-like with shock for a moment. Louis feels his breath hitch and then Harry’s big tender hands come up to frame his face, thumbs delineating the stark blades of Louis’s cheekbones as they grasp at one another, needy. Louis flits his tongue over Harry’s mouth, parts his strawberry lips to open him, taste him, so warm-sweet and it’s like they’ve done this every day since that bold summer night. Louis knits his fingers through Harry’s thatch of soft unkempt dark curls and he thinks if they never stop he will be perfectly alright with that. 

“I love you,” he chokes against Harry’s mouth, and Harry inhales Louis’s exhale, committing every snippet of this instant to heart.

“I love you so much,” he answers, nuzzling against Louis’s forehead, and then Louis crushes his mouth to Harry’s again and they lose time for a while. Neither of them are reserved in the slightest and it’s plain in how Harry gets Louis pinned against the counter, nudging back with his hips so he can trap the smaller boy, corner him into voluntary submission. Roving curious hands find Louis’s hips, fit around them, stroke up under his shirt to play over hot skin burned further by Harry’s touch. Before Louis is even half conscious of what’s happening Harry has him hiked up on the counter, invading him so Louis has to split his legs for the younger boy to stay close. Inevitably this draws their hips flush and Louis is so hard but Harry is too and they’re both getting reckless. Harry slides his tongue under Louis’s top lip, licking slow against his teeth, and Louis can’t take it. He drops his head back, cuts off the kiss in favor of a low involuntary groan.

Harry is panting, open mouth painted juicy red with kiss bruises, pupils blown kohl against luminous jade. His smile when Louis finds his gaze is slow and unbearably impish.

“So good, Haz,” says Louis, voice all rusty and scraped through with want.

“And you,” returns Harry, fingers dancing between the hem of Louis’s shirt and his waistband, daring. “Wanted this for ages.”

“Oh, God, you know I have too.” On impulse Louis rocks forward and licks into that wicked grin and Harry moans, taken by surprise. “Since before the first time.”

“Fuck, Lou,” grinds Harry, and his hand has breached Louis’s shirt now, trailing up over his quivery stomach like a taunt. “Since always.”

Louis laughs but his attention is rent between the hand on his bare skin and the conversation and he can’t master it. He reaches down and grabs the bottom of his shirt, pulls it over his head, messy now with Harry’s touch. Their eyes seize; Harry runs his tongue over his mouth, parched out by the implication of Louis’s gesture and he can’t force himself to remember how to breathe when Louis ducks over and stamps a wet kiss on his throat.

“Fucking gorgeous, you,” growls Louis, scraping delicate alabaster skin with his teeth, and Harry gives this deep deep rumble in his chest and through layers of cloth Louis feels his cock twitch. He exhales on a devious laugh, closes his teeth over Harry’s skin again, voracious sucking bite and Harry is squirming, fingers clenching Louis’s waist so hard he knows there will be a pretty display of gray-lilac bruises tomorrow. He loves this, the reins  
of tempo in his hands. Control.

Except it lasts for all of half a minute before Harry steals it.

Fluidly he fits his hands under Louis’s body, hefts him easy like he’s a feather pillow, and out of pure reflex Louis curls his thighs around Harry’s narrow hips, lets go a tiny noise of surprise. The curly-haired boy is brisk to capitalize on opportunity and just like that he is carrying Louis through the house, impressing hard open wet kisses on his pleased little mouth to hush any demurral he might have.

“Haz-” Kiss.

“Mmph.” Kiss. “Lou?”

“Harry.” Laughing through the onslaught, exasperated half-serious fists bouncing helplessly off the younger boy’s broad shoulders.

“Hmm.” Harry won’t stop, cloying opium sweetness of Louis’s tongue drawing him back and back and he’s a slave to the taste, the hot slick rhythm of their mouths as they move together. Louis is rock-hard against his thigh and it gives him a lightning-strike thrill, sizzle of impossible heat bolting through his belly. He digs his teeth gently into Louis’s lower lip and the older boy moans for it, legs clenching harder around Harry’s waist as he licks slow over the domino line of Harry’s front teeth. Claiming him.

“This is ridiculous,” announces Louis, still overcome with mirth albeit the slight pout decorating his used mouth. “I’m the eldest, I’m supposed to be carrying you.”

“Yes but you’re so little,” explains Harry tolerantly, as though this is the clearest thing in the world - which, Louis supposes, it rather is. From anyone else this would be a most grave insult but from Harry it’s the opposite and it makes little flickers of joy explode through his veins. Nevertheless,

“I’m fun-sized.” Defending his own honor.

“You’re perfect to me,” sings Harry in his lovely distinct gravelly voice, bright half-lidded eyes fixated to Louis’s own as he laughs, and Louis, mesmerized, closes his mouth over the younger boy’s in a kiss so saturated with heavy meaning that Harry has to freeze where he stands. Louis wields that rare ability, endlessly capable of making Harry halt in mid-motion.

They are locked like that for a beautiful moment, entangled in the dark hallway of Niall’s flat, all clutching limbs and stumbling hearts and tongues flowing smoothly into each other’s mouths. Harry’s shirt has been wrinkled up in the front and that newly familiar area of Louis’s stomach is now being introduced to another part of Harry’s body, the angled valleys of their hips melding as they let themselves mesh. Louis kisses like he’s dying for it and it makes Harry’s skin tingle, his heart ascend to the stars, because oh he is too. 

“I shouldn’t tell you this, because it’s fun to have secrets,” murmurs Louis, voice pouring from his throat into Harry’s mouth, “but sing to me, and I’m yours.”

Harry chuckles, sifts the older boy’s silken brown hair from his eyes, touches their noses together. “That goes both ways, you know.” He’s started walking again and Louis can’t look away from the warmth in his light jade eyes, can’t get over the effortlessness with which Harry manhandles him all over the place.

“Have you quite come down yet?” he asks, as Harry bumps open the door to his favorite guest bedroom in the house.

“I don’t know,” husks Harry, nibbling a swift painful ladder down Louis’s throat. “Can’t tell, honestly, I’m so hyped right now.” Always so truthful.

Louis is aware of how wanton he is for Harry biting him, legs splitting wide as they can while still enabling him to keep them curved around the younger boy’s waist, mouth fallen open in a broken moan as he lets his head tip blissfully back. “But you know - what you’re doing,” he presses, ensuring.

“Yes, Lou, yes, I’ve told you. I know,” enthuses Harry, sucking viciously on a ripe bruise he’s just manufactured above Louis’s collarbone. He kicks the door shut behind them, plants a shattering kiss on Louis’s parted lips as he backs them up towards the bed. Throws Louis down upon it, crawls over him all dominant and starved on his fours. Louis doesn’t wait for him to come; he scrambles up to intercept him and kisses into his swollen mouth as though eternal happiness is resting on it.

Harry bulls down into the cleft between Louis’s shoulder and the base of his neck, embeds his teeth again, and Louis cries out softly, claw-tensed fingers punching half-moon marks into Harry’s arms. Greedily he slides a curious hand up Harry’s shirt, trailing over fevered skin marked damp with sweat, smiling when Harry whines his approval. Louis takes this as permission to lift the inconvenient garment over the younger boy’s head and toss it to one side. It takes only a second but it’s far too long and when Harry presses himself into Louis’s body once more it is with the long-suffering haste of exceeding deprivation. Louis feels like everything good in the world against him and it has never been like this, not ever. Their lips come together once more 

fireworks, perfection

and then Louis gets his knees locked around Harry’s and flips him over, thirsty for command, needing the friction of their hips sliding flush. Harry moans and the sound makes Louis’s stomach boil.

“Haz, Haz,” he whispers, reveling in the younger boy’s sweet unusual beauty as his lips nudge at the stretched-tight skin over Harry’s shoulder. “So beautiful.”

“That’s you,” argues Harry, beaming into Louis’s hair. “I love you.” He could say it a thousand times a minute and not get sick of the words, brazen junkie for the way they feel skipping off his tongue.

“I love you, too,” answers Louis readily, kissing him, and it’s all heartrending fondness and lust and want and need and a million other things that he feels and it’s so much, too much. He is going to combust, and it’s glorious.

They lay memorizing each other everywhere for savory timeless moments, fingers knotting together before breaking apart to explore unfamiliar places. Louis retains the upper hand but Harry keeps bucking his hips up to encourage that slow shuddering grind and they are both close to losing it. Harry’s hands pet a dangerous track along Louis’s waist, the length of his inner thigh, bold plain tease and Louis is a mess for it. He is patient for as long as he can be but when Harry dips his index finger into the older boy’s waistband, sweeps it along the strip of skin there but neglects to follow through with that tentative promise, Louis snatches his hand and presses it with unceremonious aggression against the front of his jeans. Harry grins wickedly, curls his fingers assuredly around Louis’s cock, and the elder knows it’s what he was waiting for. He moves to undo the zipper but Harry has beaten him to the task and is now commencing to snap open the button as well, all while mouthing wetly along the solid pole of Louis’s collarbone.

Unthinking Louis reaches between them and unbuttons Harry as well, sure and hungry groping through for the warmth of his skin. Time skips and abruptly they are in nothing but boxers, fluent unabashed motion against each other, melding perfect like connect-the-dots. The stark white of Harry’s smooth throat is splotched with violent proud red, bitemarks and delicate bruises hastily blooming a meek shade of violet. Louis is obsessed with them, tracing wondering fingers over the map that he has made for himself, and the fact that he is finally able to mark his territory is enough to throw a hitch in his breath.

Harry’s eyes trail the progress of his fingers and he smiles, knowing. “Do mine look as bad as yours?” Naughtily.

“They look amazing,” says Louis flatly, shaking his head, and Harry sits up to kiss him, draw him back down. Louis follows him without struggle, snake-charmed.

They cannot tire of tasting each other; on and on because it feels like they have all the time in the universe, eternal. Eventually, with a shade of timidity, Harry slides a huge hand into Louis’s boxers and frees his cock, weeping pre-come and Louis is reduced to feral need at the feel of Harry’s fingers, the sight of his thumb sweeping slow over the slit, spreading the wetness around. He growls and wriggles out of his shorts, reaches over and gets his hands on Harry’s hips to return the favor, and then they are skin-to-skin, finally, all fever-burned and bold as they move synchronically. They are in beautiful sticky disarray, perception all surreal and watercolor blurry from disbelief. Harry’s curls flutter into his face and Louis flips them impatiently aside so he can see the starred neon luminescence of the younger boy’s eyes. 

For a while they just curl around each other getting acquainted, inquisitive avid fingers skating everywhere, and Harry is tracing a track along the stripe of dark hair lining Louis’s lower stomach. His mouth is glossed-over wet and ripe as a summer peach and it is not much of an overstatement to say that he could probably cause World War III with it, the way he licks slow around those slightly parted lips before he kisses Louis deep, upper lip lower lip tongue. It is dangerous how much Louis wants him. He is conflicted because he wants this forever but his body is thrumming with need, instinct crying out for release, and who is he to do anything but give in. He skips a hand up the inside of Harry’s thigh, runs the backs of his fingernails along the younger boy’s cock before he curls a thumb over the slit, indecently slick with precome. Raises his hand to his mouth and sucks the wetness from his skin, faint salt swimming over his tongue and god that look in Harry’s eyes makes his heart stumble, his cock give a shuddering jump. Harry launches up and drags Louis in for a kiss, the green of his eyes popping against deep deep pitch, afire. Between them his hand is working and before Louis can even grasp what’s happening Harry is jacking them off together, ridiculous double friction and neither of them can do a thing but let their heads drop back and ride it out. Louis is thinking that there has never been anything so perfect in the history of ever, and then he is thinking Harry’s name in a crazy jumbled continuous trail, and then he isn’t thinking anything at all.

Harry digs his teeth into the crevice between Louis’s neck and shoulder when he comes, sobs out Louis’s name, and the older boy wraps his fingers around Harry’s forearms and gives a choked groan

Haz Jesus fucking Christ Haz

and he is right there with him, quivering through an orgasm so powerful it turns his nerves to lightning, current careening through him and he can’t remember anything but Harry’s name.

Afterward they breathe into each other’s hair, shaking, smiling. Harry kisses along the nape of Louis’s neck and thrills for the way the older boy purrs in satisfaction, sweet. Their lips come together, all chaste timorous tenderness now, and when they separate to breathe Louis bumps his forehead to Harry’s.

“I love you, Haz,” he murmurs, thumbs dancing along Harry’s jawline.

“I love you too, Lou,” croons Harry, and in that moment he understands that it was all worth it, everything, Taylor and Eleanor and his fabricated reputation, the hours spent agonizing over tiny not-so-meaningless nothings, the acid and the rescue search. They belong to each other now, and maybe this is paradise; maybe it was supposed to happen like this all along.

In the morning Niall takes in their rough bitten bruises and sex hair and sheepish expressions and walks around whistling with this shit-eating grin plastered to his face until he gets Harry alone and practically shrieks, “So?”

And Harry meets his eyes bashfully and grins and nods and Niall laughs out loud, dashes out to find Louis and engulf him in this massive bear hug because finally his two idiot best friends have realized what everyone else understood ages ago: that they are incontrovertibly the dictionary definition of soul mates.


End file.
